RE: Neurosurgeon Provides Evidence Against Materialism
June 13, 2019 at 5:36 pm
(This post was last modified: June 13, 2019 at 5:45 pm by ColdComfort.)
(June 13, 2019 at 12:08 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: The insight (at least potentially) is that the schema isn't expected to contain information on how it operates, only that information that would be useful to it;s operation. You don't need to know what an individual neuron firing feels like, so you don't, and thus the schema necessarily wouldn't "feel like" a description of it's mechanical function.
I'm not sure what the point here is. I'm not aware of neurons firing: of course. I'm not aware of most of my body's functions. But instruments can measure them. Perhaps in time there will be instruments that will be able to measure brain activity that corresponds to every conscious experience. I'll concede the point for the purposes of this discussion. My experience of awareness or directing my attention to something is not the brain activity the authors have in mind. It is something quite different even though you may assert a causal connection.
(June 13, 2019 at 5:18 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote: How would deciding to do a chicken dance, and then either doing the chicken dance -or- not doing the chicken dance, for whatever reason, demonstrate that?
You're giving a demonstration of what, I assume, is us deciding stuff, but what about that demonstration tells you or would inform anyone else that a "non-physical essence" is doing the deciding in the first place?
Because the experiment demonstrates that the decision corresponds to the behaviour or almost always does. If you want to argue either that a decision is a physical thing or that decisions are determined by brain activity then the experiment is begging the question. " Non-physical essence" was the authors words not mine.
